Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I suppose I ought to declare an interest in this debate in that I worked at No. 10 at the time of the Iraq war. Indeed, I sat opposite some of the foreign affairs private secretaries whose minutes are now to be found on the Chilcot inquiry website. I saw some of it pretty much at first hand, although I was not directly involved with Iraq. It was not a very easy period, I can tell your Lordships.

I do not think it is right for our debate tonight to get into the substance of the issues that the Chilcot inquiry is addressing. It has been an extremely good debate and the speeches, as usual for the House of Lords, have been of exceptionally high quality, and I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, who obviously put an awful lot of thought into what he had to say in opening the debate.

I will confine my remarks from these Benches to the question of delay and the view the Government take of that delay and of the questions relating to the disclosure that are at the heart of that delay. It is important to be clear: as I understand it, it is not that written evidence has been withheld from the inquiry; the inquiry has seen all the relevant papers. The issue at stake is how much of that evidence it can actually quote in its final report. So the question is: does the committee base its conclusions on the public taking it on trust that it has read the material and this is what it concludes, or is it able to quote from the documents?

Everyone will agree that the Chilcot process has been very thorough. If you look at that website, you will see that far more government papers are available than for any precedent that I can recall. The comparison with Suez, where no one was told about the secret deal that was done with the French and the Israelis, is very striking.

However, there are questions about the extent of disclosure. I want to see the Iraq question and as many of these issues as possible put to rest, but even then there are three areas in which questions of disclosure raise awkward issues. These are questions not just for civil servants, but for any responsible Government of any party acting in the national interest.

I think one of these questions has already been sorted out: the question about dealing with the use of intelligence, and the worries as to whether disclosure of anything to do with intelligence compromises sources. I should like the Government to confirm what I think to be the position: that in the case of Iraq those questions were sorted out in the Butler inquiry in 2004, and that there are no new intelligence issues arising in the case of Chilcot. These issues relate to national security. From our Benches, as my party leader said only yesterday, we support greater scrutiny of the way in which intelligence operates. There are obvious limits as well.

The second issue concerns relations with our allies. The committee wants to quote from private correspondence between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States. If we see ourselves as America’s closest ally there is a real question, not just of the past but for the future, as to the obligation that places on us to protect confidences in that relationship. On that point I am sure a lot of people would say, “Damn the Americans”. I do not take that view. If we are serious about our alliances—and the same would be true of our close partners in Europe in other situations—we do have obligations to our allies and partners. How do the Government see that question? Time makes a great difference, but we are talking about something that happened a little over 10 years ago. What view do the Government take of what is a reasonable time to disclose things that affect our closest allies?

Thirdly, there is the issue about freedom of information and what are called Cabinet-level discussions. Whatever decisions the Government make on disclosure as far as the Chilcot inquiry is concerned could have long-term implications for freedom of information more generally. This is a serious issue. My party introduced freedom of information in 1998. We are proud of that achievement, but there were always boundaries that had to be set. I have always thought of freedom of information, in simplistic terms, as meaning that expert advice should be open but confidential discussion should remain confidential. How do the Government see this question about disclosure of discussions right at the centre of government on the basis of papers provided? Much of the content is now available on the website, but how do the Government see this question of disclosure of Cabinet-level decisions? This will have an impact on all future Governments. This is not just about dealing with the Iraq issue. This is about whether disclosure is going to affect the relationship between Ministers and civil servants for decades ahead. We have to get that right.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

Two points arise. First, if it be the case that information of a confidential nature between states is always to be kept in the background, that is an end to any question of transparency. Does the noble Lord accept first of all that many of the thousands of documents that have been disclosed to Chilcot on the basis that they are declassified and therefore open to publication come into that particular area that he mentions?

The other matter is that it appears—if the responsible press is to be believed—that Mr Brown, in so far as his position as Prime Minister or as Chancellor is concerned during the period from 2001 to 2009 that is covered by the inquiry, says that he has no objection to the disclosure of any of the three groups of documents that have been referred to.

[Lord Liddle]

I am arguing here that these are very difficult decisions and that we have to have a clear view for the future. I am not looking to the past; I am wondering what the impact of this will be on future relations between Ministers and between Ministers and civil servants. I would simply be grateful if the Minister was able to give us an answer.

EU: Balance of Competences Review

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The other day my wife and I were discussing how much sugar she puts in jam. We have rather a surplus of fruit from our allotment this year. I simply remind the noble Baroness that Britain is also a European country.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, while the Government conduct this interesting and potentially valuable but, in truth, somewhat academic exercise, has the Minister noticed the CBI report published yesterday which shows that the benefit to Britain of our membership is between £62 billion and £78 billion a year—4% to 5% of our GDP? Can he imagine any circumstances in which any British Government would be crazy enough to throw away these benefits, whatever the results of his review of competences?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, academic exercises have their valuable purposes as well. I look forward to hearing the Labour leadership say frequently and openly that they also agree with the CBI’s statement.

European Union Committee: 2012-13 (EUC Report)

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I join the chorus of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, and to the formidable array of committee chairs and retired chairs who have spoken. I thank them for their hard work, and for the rigour and objectivity of that work, which makes a tremendous contribution to the European debate in Britain.

I want to make three points in a brief speech. First, this work is essential and therefore I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that there should be no further cutbacks to it in this House. Secondly, it can work properly only if all parts of the Government take it seriously. I have a lot of sympathy with the strictures on the Treasury that I have heard from various quarters in this debate. When I worked in 10 Downing Street the Treasury would not even tell No. 10 what was going on. That was not so much because of the personalities at the top but rather because of an institutional arrogance: they believe they are guardians of the state unaccountable to anyone else. This attitude has to change.

If I may make an aside, I am somewhat alarmed by the fact that at present the two key posts in the management of European business—in the European Secretariat and at UKRep in Brussels—are held by people from the Treasury. I congratulate Sir Jon Cunliffe, who is a very able man, on his appointment as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England but I hope this Treasury grip will not be maintained.

The third point is about the future work of the committee. Here I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howell—and not just because of the very nice compliment that he paid my think tank—that the committee could take a more ambitious view of its role beyond scrutiny. We have to recognise that a big debate has been started about Britain’s future in the European Union and the committee can make a very valuable contribution to it, particularly in two areas where it is extremely well, if not uniquely well, qualified. One is the question of competences and the whole debate about subsidiarity and proportionality. The second is the debate about the need for an enhanced role for national parliaments.

A good starting point would be the Government’s balance of competences review. My fears about this have been somewhat allayed by the tone of the first reports, as they show an objectivity of approach. There has certainly been a bit of Lib Dem influence there, which is possibly more effective in this area than on many coalition policies. I also think there is a sense in parts of the Conservative Party that it is simply not going to follow the kind of bar-room prejudices of Nigel Farage in setting its future European agenda—at least, I hope so. I detect—I would like to know what the Minister says about this—that the Government are shifting from what started off as a Conservative manifesto commitment to the repatriation of powers to a sensible debate about the need for multilateral reform of the way the European Union exercises its competences. If that is the case, it would be quite an important shift, which on this side of the House we would very strongly support. The committee could help that debate along, particularly if it carried out a detailed examination of how there can be better enforcement of subsidiarity and proportionality and what role national Parliaments can play.

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is right to say that the work of the committee could be even better. Certainly, the role of national parliaments in the system could be strengthened without treaty change. We have to look, at a much earlier stage in the policy-making process than at present, at how national parliaments hold Ministers to account. We should seek to beef up the role of COSAC—the body that brings together the parliaments in Brussels—so that the yellow card procedure is used more effectively. Of course, there are all sorts of other ways in which the role of national parliaments could be strengthened through future treaty change, but I suspect that that is some way away.

Therefore, the Select Committee does excellent work, but it could do even more if it made a contribution to this crucial debate about reform of the European Union, and in that way helped us to remain effective members.

EU: Advocates-General of the Court of Justice

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rowlands]

My Lords, I associate myself fully with my noble friend’s observations about the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Bowness. I have had the privilege of serving under him for more than three years, and if anyone wanted to find a way to be a model chairman, they should follow him. We have been a disparate group over these past three or four years. Europe encourages lots of disparate views but he somehow managed, throughout the whole of his chairmanship, to achieve a consensus through persuasive patience. I, too, acknowledge his importance and he has been a marvellous chairman.

I welcome, too, the acceptance by the Minister of our recommendation to increase the number of advocates-general. Whatever one’s views about the court’s broader role—it has been controversial and previously I have made observations about its role and said that it might have been on a mission to drive ever closer union and so on—we know simply that we need a fully functioning Court of Justice if we are to remain in the single market and if it is to be effective. It is not just in the interests of some European ideal, it is strongly in British interests that the Court of Justice works effectively, and produces quality and timely justice.

Given the new role that the court will be playing in the field of justice and home affairs, there is a potential time bomb. It is not just the fact of the number of cases but the relationship between the work that the court will play in the new area of the administration of justice, which has to take priority because judgments have to made quickly, and, more broadly, the court’s other cases and judgments that could be displaced. Interesting figures are quoted in the report. Table 1 reveals that the number of preliminary rulings that have come before the Court of Justice concerning freedom, security and justice, was 17 in 2009, 38 in 2010, and 44 in 2011. That represents a considerable increase, both in terms of numbers and proportion. If that were to continue, the relationship between the work of the Court of Justice in its role as regards freedom, security and justice and its more general role could have an important and serious effect.

When this matter was raised with the Minister, David Lidington, he accepted in his oral evidence that there was a considerable proportionate increase but argued that only 10% of preliminary references in 2001 came from justice and home affairs. However, that 10% figure is increasing. The Minister admitted in his evidence that we really do not know the potential. The figures are beginning to show, and I believe that they will show, that as the Court of Justice increasingly becomes involved in freedom and security issues there will be more urgent cases and, therefore, delays to cases in the broader work of the court could occur.

We wanted to raise this matter and are glad that after initial hesitation the Government have accepted our recommendations on advocates-general. As the noble Lord said, they were actually written into the Lisbon treaty, but the Minister should also be aware that sooner or later we will have to address again the issue of the number of judges. I understand the impasse and the complications among all the member states on who should be appointed, who should appoint and which country should be given the appointments. Mr Lidington at least accepted that advocates-general do not raise those sorts of issues.

I was particularly interested in the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, which was very different from that of his predecessor. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, was very chary of the whole idea of new judges, but I think that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has said that the Government have in principle accepted that concept. If that is the case, we as members of the committee are very pleased.

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, this is the third debate in which I have spoken on the European Court of Justice from the Opposition Front Bench. We support the strengthening of the system; it is essential to the effectiveness and quality of justice in the European Union. We seem to be getting there at least step by step. The proposal for additional advocates-general has our support. The idea that Poland should have a permanent position seems to be in accord with the acceptance that that country is one of the major member states of the Union. It grants Poland the equality of status that it has long sought.

It is significant that the Government have moved to support this proposal. It shows that at least they accept the pragmatism of the view of the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, whereby if you are going to have an effective single market you have to have an effective form of justice. I have to say, however, that there are many people not present tonight but who occupy the government Benches and talk about renegotiating a relationship between Britain and the European Union, which, in essence, boils down to free trade and political co-operation. If that is the vision of the modern Conservative Party about Britain’s relationship with the EU, it is not one in which you would have this system of law which upholds the single market. We need clarification from the Government as to what they envisage the role of the system of law in the European Union to be. I very much hope that what they are doing now, on a case-by-case basis, demonstrates that they accept pooled sovereignty in areas where we have chosen to accept it, and that part of this involves a form of supranational decision-making and supranational law.

My second point is that I support those noble Lords who have raised the question of why progress is limited, so far, to the issue of additional judges for the general court. That is clearly an important part of the reform package. I listened very carefully to what the Minister said about the Government broadly supporting this proposal. Do they support it or do they not? Do they regard the requirement to keep within the existing budget of the court as a binding constraint in all circumstances, or do they not? Is it a binding constraint or is it not? If they say it is a binding constraint, what efficiency proposals are the Government putting forward to the court in order that the cost of the additional judges could be met from within the budget?

I suspect that we are seeing a divided Whitehall here, with some departments recognising the need for additional judges, while others are trying to argue that the cost has to be kept within the existing budget. It is all very well making these declarations but how will it be done?

I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, said about not differentiating between cost and value. It should be obvious to everyone that the value of more efficient decision-making on issues of central concern to our economy, such as the single market, would greatly exceed the cost. Where do the Government stand on this point?

I also endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, said about the value not just of greater efficiency of justice in terms of the single market, but also in terms of the basic rights of European citizens. We welcome the limited steps that have been taken. Of course, one should search for efficiency and cost saving all the time, but can the Government give us an assurance that they will not block a proposal to increase the number of judges purely on cost grounds alone?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this debate has moved more widely than the decision to appoint another three advocates-general. I take it that we are all agreed that we have no objections to the appointment of three additional advocates-general, so I therefore trust that we may agree the Motion—which is the trigger for this debate—at the end of the debate.

On that point, the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, asked about the exact meaning of Article 252 of the TFEU. Many of these things require juristes-linguistes to play around with the words a great deal. I am told that the Council, acting unanimously, can decide, in effect, to increase the number of advocates-general. Declaration 38 is a declaration of intent but the Council has nevertheless to act unanimously to approve a decision. If the British Government, having failed to achieve the agreement of both Houses of Parliament, were to block it, it would not go forward and that would have a damaging effect on UK relations with Poland. The Poles are very much looking forward to joining the other big five, so to speak, in appointing their own advocate-general.

EUC Report: EU External Action Service

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I must apologise to the Grand Committee because, for unavoidable personal reasons, I probably have to commit the unpardonable sin of leaving the Committee before the Minister has concluded. I am very sorry about that, but I cannot avoid it. I will be very brief. First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for the work that he has done and for the many reports that this Committee has produced. This again shows the value of the work that our Select Committee does.

Secondly, I join the tributes to the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, for the role that she has played in helping partly to settle the Serbia-Kosovo dispute. I would like to make clear, on behalf of the Labour Party, that we support the External Action Service and that we want to see its role developed, obviously as a supplement to British foreign policy and to magnify that policy’s impact.

The fact is, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has explained, that what went before was dysfunctional, and the EAS is a great improvement. There is one point that I would like to ask the Minister about, and that is the role of Britain in this service. I agree with the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Kerr, about the hope that the Government would not be so reserved in their approach. One of the real worries that I have is about the proportion of British officials working in the EAS. The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, raised this point. The service gave me figures showing that only 7.6% of the people working in the service are British, as opposed to our 12.5% share of the population. This is particularly true of member state diplomats: British diplomats make up only 2.3% of the numbers in the service as opposed to 4% for France. As a lot of the national diplomats occupy senior positions in policymaking in the service in Brussels, this is a demonstration of a lack of adequate British influence that I would like the Minister to address in his reply.

European Union Committee Report

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Liddle]

On behalf of the Opposition, I thank the committee, its chairs, members and excellent staff for all their work. It represents a huge volume of activity of very high quality which has very considerable impact. The House ought to celebrate this committee as one of its finest achievements. The speech that we have just heard from my noble friend Lord Rowlands about the detailed examination that the committee has done of proposals in that sub-committee’s field is a tribute to the work of the committee.

Whatever you think of Europe, it needs scrutiny. Like my splendid noble friend Lady Crawley, I am a very strong pro-European. But just because you are pro-European does not mean that you are not critical of an awful lot that happens in the EU. I have always been pro-Europe and pro-reform in Europe. If you are of that disposition, the work of this committee is very valuable. You have only to look at the recommendations in its reports—a classic example was the report of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, on the Channel Tunnel—to get an agenda for reform that this country ought to be pushing.

I wish to comment briefly on the institutional points about the committee that have been made. First, I think it is a pity that we have seen a reduction in the number of sub-committees. I do not say that just because I was briefly a member of the one that was abolished under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. However, if the House of Lords, as an appointed House which is full of people of political experience and specialist expertise, cannot do a committee job properly, what is the point of the place?

Secondly, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Judd—this may be a little criticism of the EU Committee—in that I think that Europe cannot avoid the social agenda. Social sustainability is one of the real challenges facing Europe. Therefore, I think it is a pity that the axe fell on the committee that specialised in that area. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, that we should try through the usual channels to make the debates on the Floor of the House more timely.

Thirdly, I agree with many of the speakers in this debate that we should promote as much as we can the engagement of people outside in the committee’s work. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, about good regular contact with MEPs is a very good one. The point I want to press on the Committee is the need for networking with other national Parliaments in order that the subsidiarity clauses of the new Lisbon treaty can be made properly and demonstrably effective to the European public. That will work properly only if we really get engaged with the relevant bodies in other national Parliaments.

On the wider point, I think the noble Lord, Lord Jay, is right that we are on the threshold of a great national debate about Europe. Of course it has to be a dispassionate debate, though I hope some of us will be allowed a little passion as well. The purpose of any debate has to be to try to engage intelligent Eurosceptic opinion. We have to bring round to the merits of British membership of the European Union those who are critical but at the same time open to reason and persuasion. Perhaps I am being very unfair but if we succeed with the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, that is a very important test, given the very interesting speech he made, critical of aspects of the Union.

I will make one final point about the agenda of the committee’s work. First, I would like to think that the committee could make a real contribution to the balance of competences review and I ask the Minister how the Government think the committee might make a contribution to that. Secondly, although the focus is naturally on specific EU policies and proposals, we have to raise our sights to the very big challenges, which basically are the arguments around the European Union. Internally, the European Union has this huge economic and social challenge. At the moment the short-term requirements of austerity are not matched to the medium and long-term need to make Europe ecologically sustainable, competitive in a global world and able to cope with the demographic challenge. Frankly, it is this lack of connection between the short term and the long term that we have to think about. Externally, people are just not conscious of how rapidly the world is changing and what role Europe, acting together, can play in defending our values and interests in a world where power is dramatically shifting to Asia and other countries. So the committee should try to broaden its sights on to these big questions. But it is excellent in its work. I fully support it and I am delighted to back everything that it does.

EU: UK Membership

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Liddle]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for making the case for the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are committed to playing a leading role in the European Union to advance our national interests. We play an active role within the EU on many issues—Iran, Syria, Burma, the single market and improving Europe’s competitiveness—and work closely with other EU countries to deliver those important objectives. There is no question of the UK disengaging or withdrawing from the EU. We will remain leading proponents of the EU’s most successful policies.

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, although it is always a pleasure to face the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, I was rather hoping to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, to answer this Question—I think it is the first Foreign Office Question that she has had the opportunity to answer. It is a pity, on a day when the Prime Minister is coming back to the other place to report on the European Council, that she is not here.

What the noble Lord said is all very well, but most of what we hear from the coalition is refusal to enter negotiations on questions that are central to our economic interests, such as the fiscal treaty and the banking union. We hear about opt-outs from justice and home affairs measures that are vital to fight organised crime. We hear about repatriation of competences.

[Noble Lords]

Question!

[Lord Liddle]

Okay. We hear about a future renegotiation. Is it any surprise that the public standing of the EU is at a low ebb? When will we hear from the Government clear leadership that our membership of the EU is vital to our economy and essential to our place in the world? Since the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is answering for the coalition, how much longer are the Liberal Democrats prepared to put up with the Government’s policy of isolation, defeatism and retreat?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I say on behalf of my noble friend Lady Warsi that she answered three debates last week and she will be here tomorrow. She has other responsibilities.

On the question of defending our position within the EU, the Government have made it clear through a number of senior Ministers, not just the Prime Minister, that we intend to stay in the European Union—rather more clearly than leading members of the previous Government in their last two to three years in office.

European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Republic of Korea Framework Agreement) Order 2012

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, the Minister said at the outset of his remarks that we should attach great importance to our relationship with the Republic of Korea, our key ally in east Asia; I entirely concur. The noble Lord, Lord Dykes, suggested that I am an expert on Korean issues, which is an exaggeration. So far as North Korea is concerned, the only thing predictable about it is its unpredictability. I do not claim great expertise, but I declare a non-financial interest as chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea, which I founded along with my noble friend Lady Cox seven years ago following our first visit there.

I was struck by paragraph 7.2 of the memorandum to the statutory instrument, which lists “Justice, Freedom and Security” and suggests that these might involve,

“(e.g. combating organised crime and corruption, drugs and money laundering, migration, protection of personal data) as well as on good governance, and taxation”.

It goes on to talk about what the agreement will allow engagement over:

“issues such as climate change; security of energy supply; approaches to labour issues; education and other issues relating to structural change in the world economy; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; counter terrorism; and a shared understanding on the need to prosecute the most serious crimes of concern to the international community”.

I do not take exception to any of those; indeed, I shall return to three or four examples in the list with some brief questions to the Minister in a moment or two. However, I am surprised that there is no reference to the relationship between North Korea and the European Union—and between it and ourselves. We have had diplomatic relations for over a decade now with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The lack of such a reference seems strange, as does the lack of a reference to human rights in that list.

Looking at the issue from the international perspective, one of the errors in how we have conducted relations is that we have emphasised security questions a great deal—properly so, given that North Korea embarked on the development of weapons of mass destruction—but failed to run in parallel questions of human rights. This is not a criticism of Her Majesty’s Government—quite the opposite. I was struck that Amnesty International reported on 10 January that, to mark the birthday of the two late leaders in North Korea, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, an amnesty had been declared for the release of prisoners there. If the Minister has any information on that, I would be grateful if he will let us know whether that is so, how many prisoners might be involved, and whether he sees it as a glimmer of hope in the international situation. If he does not have that information today, I would be grateful if he wrote to me in due course.

I have long argued that we have not really learnt the lesson of history that in the period of the Soviet Union, we understandably matched weapons of mass destruction—the SS-20s and SS-22s of the Soviet Union—with our cruise and Pershing missiles. Simultaneously, Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister and Ronald Reagan as President of the United States at the time embarked on support for the Helsinki Accords, promoting human rights issues alongside and in parallel with security questions. That was the reason we saw the Berlin Wall crumble, and it will be the reason—maybe not tomorrow, but in time to come—that the 38th parallel, which divides the Korean peninsula, disappears as well.

The importance of human rights in North Korea should not be underestimated. In a leader 18 months ago entitled “Slave state”, the Times said:

“The condition of the people of North Korea ranks among the great tragedies of the past century. The despotism that consigns them to that state is one of its greatest crimes”.

It was in this Room—the Moses Room—that I chaired meetings of the all-party group where we took evidence on several occasions from people who had escaped from North Korea. I will give only one example to the Committee this afternoon: a witness called Ahn Myeong-cheol, aged 37, who worked as a prison guard at four political prison camps within what is called the absolute control zone between 1987 and 1994. He movingly described in this Room how his father killed himself when he realised that he had been heard criticising the regime. His mother and brothers were sent to prison camps. Ahn was re-educated and became a prison guard in that so-called absolute control zone. He vividly and harrowingly described how he witnessed guard dogs, imported from Russia, tear three children to pieces and how the camp warden congratulated the guard who trained the dogs. He said that even when prisoners died they were punished; their corpses and remains were simply left to disintegrate and rot away on the open ground.

I also chaired a meeting for Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn, who was the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and who, along with his successor Mr Darusman, the former Indonesian Attorney-General, was denied any access to North Korea. In this House, speaking to the all-party group, Vitit Muntarbhorn said that he estimated that 400,000 people had died in North Korea’s prison camps in the past 30 years. He said that its human rights record was “abysmal” due to,

“the repressive nature of the power base, at once cloistered, controlled and callous”,

and that,

“The exploitation of … ordinary people … has become the pernicious prerogative of the ruling elite”.

All eight of his reports which went to the United Nations have detailed a very grave situation in which the abuses are “both systematic and pervasive”, and “egregious and endemic”. Vitit Muntarbhorn has concluded:

“It is incumbent upon the national authorities and the international community to address the impunity factor which has enabled such violations to exist and/or persist for a very long time”.

He estimates that some 300,000 people have fled the country, many of whom are, of course, living in north-east China while others have managed to migrate to South Korea. There is a brilliant book called Nothing to Envy, written by Barbara Demick, which records many of the first-hand accounts of those who have been able to escape.

Here at Westminster, I chaired the launch of a 142-page report commissioned by the late Vaclav Havel, Elie Weisel, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and Kjell Magne Bondevik, the former Norwegian Prime Minister, entitled Failure to Protect: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in North Korea. What they were arguing in that report was for the need for the international community to take human rights issues every bit as seriously as issues concerning security. Only a week ago in another place, in a Westminster Hall debate, the honourable Member for Congleton, Mrs Fiona Bruce, along with Mr Gary Streeter, the Member of Parliament who is the vice-chairman of the all- party parliamentary group, initiated a debate where Members from all sides spoke of their concerns about human rights and humanitarian questions. I commend the Hansard of that debate to your Lordships.

A few weeks ago in this House, I chaired a meeting for Shin Dong-hyuk, who is aged 26 and was born in prison camp 14. He spent the first 23 years of his life in that camp. I am glad to see that the noble Lords, Lord Edmiston and Lord Grocott, who have taken a close interest in this issue, are present in the Committee. They have had the chance to meet some of those who I have referred to. Shin Dong-hyuk was forced to work for 11 years from the age of 10 and was forced to watch as his mother and brother were executed. During his visit here, he met the Lord Speaker and the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury. He has a book which will be published in March, entitled Escape from Camp 14. It is precisely people such as Shin Dong-hyuk whom we should be investing in for the future. They are tomorrow's leaders. He does not have a hatred of the leadership of North Korea; he has a hatred of the ideology. He wants his country to change and to reform just as the Republic of Korea did. That was, after all, a military dictatorship, but under the extraordinarily brave and enlightened leadership of Kim Dae-jung it embarked on the sunshine policy and reformed itself, so I hope that we will see North Korea change as well.

In addition to asking the Minister directly about human rights, the importance that we attach to it and why it does not appear in the list of our concerns on the face of the paper, I have four brief questions for him. On energy supply, it was announced in September that Russian natural gas would be pumped into South Korea via a pipeline that would straddle the whole of North Korea. At present, the £520 billion South Korean economy imports about 96 per cent of its energy, 80 per cent from the Middle East. Clearly, it does not want—any more than this country would want—to be entirely reliant on that source. What will be the payment for that energy coming into South Korea? How will that sit with the sanctions that we have imposed on nuclear proliferation—the security questions that I know are close to the heart of the Minister?

Secondly, I would like to ask about Kaesong. One of the most hopeful developments in recent years was the development eight years ago of the Kaesong industrial zone, which is about six miles north of the demilitarised zone inside North Korea. Some 48,000 North Korean workers work there in 123 different companies. This earns, it is said, around $50 million a year for North Korea. The aim is to develop Kaesong so that one day it will have some 700,000 employees. In the context of the employment and trade implications of the order before us today, what is Her Majesty's Government's position on the exploitation of labour and the use of cheap and possibly slave labour? The average wage for a North Korean working in Kaesong is about £67 per person per month, and a lot of that money has to then be handed over to the state. Is this a question that we are pursuing in the context of the cheap labour and cheap produce that could then be exported as a result of these orders to the European Union?

Thirdly, I want to ask about education. On 15 February, an extraordinary man called Dr James Kim will be in your Lordships' House speaking at the all-party group. As a young man, James Kim fought on the side of the South Koreans. He lied about his age in order to get into the army. He was one of only 17 who survived in a unit of 800 men. At the end of the war, he said that he would one day try to do something to bring peace and reconciliation to the Korean peninsula. For his trouble, 60 years later, having gone to North Korea, he was arrested as a spy and sentenced to death. He said, “I have come here to give you everything, so you might as well have my body and use it for experimental purposes”. He wrote his last will and testament and said to the United States, where he also has citizenship, “There should be no revenge because I came here as an act of love”. He was ultimately deported and a year later was allowed to return to North Korea where he was able to embark on the building of the first ever international public-private university. I was privileged to visit it a year ago at its opening with my noble friend Lady Cox.

Dr Kim raised £18 million for this extraordinary initiative as a result of Her Majesty's Government creating diplomatic relations with North Korea 10 years ago when the then Prime Minister Tony Blair overruled his Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and decided that the war was over, which is something that the United States has still not done, merely the armistice that still stands, which was signed in 1953. We ended the war and created diplomatic relations. One of the great fruits of that has been that the English language is now the official second language of the country. It is the language used at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology to teach about 600 students. Is there more that we can do to promote education as a reforming tool? It is a transformative experience. It is the chief thing that will change North Korea in the long term, and we should be very pleased from the point of view of British trade and commerce that English is so widely taught and used there.

I also congratulate the Government on supporting the creation of the first two Chevening scholarships, which started in this academic term at Cambridge University, giving young people the chance to come to the United Kingdom to learn English-language skills on brief courses. It is impossible to come to a country such as this and not be challenged by our liberties, our freedoms and our democracy—the things that we prize. Just as we saw in the former Soviet Union, perestroika and glasnost bring about change, mainly as a result of interaction. Surely the same thing can happen in North Korea.

Finally, I turn to security and weapons of mass destruction. Following the sinking of the South Korean corvette “Cheonan”, when 46 people died, and the bombing of a South Korean island, it is quite clear that there was a very serious deterioration in relations between North Korea and South Korea. Many of us fear that it will be not a deliberate act but a Sarajevo moment that will lead to a conflagration that could lead to the loss of some 3 million lives, because that is how many died in the Korean War. We often forget that in addition to the 2.5 million Koreans who died, there were 500,000 others: Chinese, Americans and 1,000 British servicemen—that is more British servicemen than died in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Falklands combined. We must do all we possibly can to ensure that there is not a repetition of history.

I wonder whether the tools in this order can be used to facilitate a Beijing peace conference because China clearly has the key role in trying to broker some way forward. I also believe that Her Majesty's Government can build on their successes in constructive critical engagement and can work with our European partners to create more constructive engagement, not least with the military. Surely with the octogenarian leadership of the Politburo, the nomenklatura and the military, there are opportunities for us to build relations with some of those who lead the military by welcoming them to the United Kingdom, taking them to places such as Sandhurst and opening dialogue to see whether we can help a country that has 1 million men under arms—it is the world’s fourth largest standing army—to put its resources into building peace instead and into doing something about the humanitarian needs of a country where 2 million people died in the famine in the 1990s and where our previous ambassador, the admirable Peter Hughes, said that he had seen examples of malnutrition reappearing on the streets.

With the news from Burma of significant change, the release of political prisoners and a coming in from the cold, surely it is not too much to hope that we might see something similar happen in North Korea. There have been changes in China. Those of us who visited China 40 years ago, as I did, and visited underground churches and saw human rights violations have seen extraordinary change and reform. China is not there yet on some of the human rights issues, but the social and economic changes make it one of the most exciting places on earth. Anyone who has the privilege of travelling to South Korea can see the possibilities for the north if only change could come.

Building on the report that my noble friend Lady Cox and I published when we returned last year Building Bridges not Walls, I commend this order, but I ask the Minister to dwell on some of the points that I have raised today and consider whether we cannot place more emphasis on the importance of raising human rights considerations as we embark on more constructive and critical engagement.

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I express the Opposition’s support for the approval of this statutory instrument. One of the real privileges of becoming a Member of the House of Lords, which I did last year, is to listen to people such as the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, who have expertise, wisdom and judgment to offer on things that one knows very little about. I hope that the points that he has raised today, although they are tangential to the thrust of the EU framework agreement, will be taken very seriously and that we will have further opportunities to debate the position in North Korea, about which he spoke so movingly. I thank him on behalf of the Opposition for his work there.

The agreement itself is what they call in EU jargon a strategic partnership, and it is one that is directly linked to the conclusion of the free trade agreement in 2010 between the EU and the Republic of Korea, which I think Europe took about a year to ratify from when it was actually signed. That was not bad when one looks at the position in relation to the United States and its free trade agreements with Korea, which are deeply enmeshed in the problems in the US Congress. Perhaps many people in Britain forget that the EU can be effective and that it still is an important pole of attraction for a very rapidly growing country like the Republic of Korea. The deal on the free trade agreement with the accompanying strategic partnership was negotiated in two years. It arose out of the global initiative that my noble friend Lord Mandelson launched when he was trade commissioner which, given the difficulties of completing the Doha round, was a switch away to bilateral trading agreements with our major trading partners.

The Republic of Korea is extremely significant for us in economic terms. It is the most important trading partner for Europe behind the United States, Japan and China. I discovered that fact when I was Googling away before the debate, but it is a remarkable fact none the less. We on this side welcome the deepening of relations with the Republic of Korea. We think it is right that a trade agreement should have a parallel political agreement, as it were, which sets out a broad range of areas for co-operation and dialogue and we very much wish that co-operation and dialogue to be effective. I am sure that this agreement will play an important role in deepening relationships between Europe and the Republic of Korea, which I hope will assist in a solution being found to the terrible problems that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, described in North Korea. I support the approval of this statutory instrument.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I happily yield to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, as an expert in EU jargon. It is a very erudite subject with which we have both struggled for many years. I feel I am slightly in the same position as I was in last night, when being asked to defend Britain's approach to the OSCE, to which the answer is: we are not entirely sure how this works or what its potential is, but we think it is worth doing. The framework agreements are a new element in EU relations with other countries beyond the European region. They have very wide potential, including on human rights, and provide a formal structure for member states collectively to raise such issues.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his, as always, fascinating and well-informed speech. While nothing in this framework agreement specifically refers to North Korea, relations with North Korea are of course always likely to be an important part of the agenda when we discuss political and human rights issues with our Korean colleagues. All those of us who have been to Seoul know that when you are in Seoul you feel close to the border. The sense of insecurity is not that much less than it used to be when one visited Berlin during the Cold War, so one cannot get away from the North Korean dimension in this relationship. The absence of specific reference to North Korea or to human rights in the framework agreement does not imply that these are outside its structure.

The noble Lord asked a number of specific questions, including one about information on the news of a potential North Korean amnesty for political prisoners. I will inquire further within the Foreign Office and report back. Although I am fully briefed on what is happening in southern Sudan, Kenya, Somalia and Iran, as one jumps from one country to another I have unfortunately not kept up with exactly what is happening in North Korea.

There are problems in developing among the EU 27 a common position on North Korea. Smaller EU member states see North Korea as a distant country, even further away from Europe than Burma. We are therefore talking about the larger EU member states attempting to reconcile their positions, which fits in with their relations with China and their position on nuclear proliferation. Finding common EU positions on distant problems with which not all the smaller member states are directly concerned is not always easy.

Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, once again the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, has done the House a service in raising this Question for Short Debate about the future of the OSCE. We would all like to thank him and my noble friend Lord Dubs for the work that they do on its parliamentary assembly.

As my noble friend Lord Dubs said, many people, including many parliamentarians, have probably never heard of the OSCE and there is always a temptation—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Patten, is going in that direction—to see the organisation as some kind of redundant hangover from the Cold War, an organisation that has outlived its time, a fossilized relic of the past. You can think of all the phrases. On this side of the House we would certainly agree with him that the Government should be asking the OSCE to justify itself. There should be more information in this House and in the other place about the activities of the OSCE and the value that it is creating. However, from listening to the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, my noble friend Lord Dubs and the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, it is clear to me at least that it would be wrong and misguided to rush to the judgment that the OSCE should go. We say that because it is a multilateral organisation—we are committed supporters of multilateralism—working in one of the most difficult and troubled areas of the world. The Deputy Prime Minister does not get many tributes these days, but he deserves a generous tribute for his decision to attend and speak at the OSCE’s summit in Kazakhstan just over a year ago.

We live in a dangerous world where, if anything, the trends are against multilateralism and commitment to multilateral organisations. Emerging powers such as China put much more emphasis on their own sovereignty, not on working together in multilateral organisations. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, referred to the trends in the United States to focus on the Pacific and, with the necessity for huge defence cuts, pull in its horns in Europe. It seems to us that that means that we should tread warily in dismissing the value of the OSCE, given the work that it does.

It feels like a long time since the collapse of the Soviet Union and since the OSCE’s members signed up to the Paris charter in which they declared their belief in a,

“new era of democracy, peace and unity”.

We know that that lofty ambition has not been fulfilled. Vladimir Putin has redefined democracy in Russia as something he calls “sovereign democracy” and we do not know quite what that means. There has been a war in Georgia between two OSCE members and there are many other troubles throughout the region.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, that we can be critical of the OSCE’s work and say that it is inadequate, but it is doing something to deal with human rights abuses, democratic flaws and the absence of the rule of law in some of the most difficult areas possible. Of course the responses are inadequate. If you have an organisation where 56 participating members have to agree and one of them is the mighty Russia, it is going to be difficult to get things done. However, the role that the OSCE plays in the areas of election monitoring, human rights and media freedom is a valuable one. It is a bit better than a case of “stick with nurse for fear of something worse”. There is a real role for this organisation.

From this side of the House, we would like to know what the Government think about the possibilities of making the OSCE more effective. My noble friend Lord Dubs asked some relevant questions about the relationship between the organisation and the assembly that is supposed to monitor it. He asked what steps have been taken to review its efficiency and effectiveness. The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, asked whether we support it, whether the Government are prepared to back it with resources—I am thinking of staff secondments in particular—and whether we are prepared to use our diplomatic efforts to build alliances within it. For instance, do we work in it within an EU framework as we now do in many international organisations?

The OSCE could be more effective in partnership with the European Union. My noble friend Lady Crawley gave me the latest edition of the magazine that we get from Azerbaijan, which referred to my noble friend Lady Ashton’s visit there quite recently when she talked about the EU working with the OSCE Minsk Group in trying to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We have leverage over the EU as well as being members of the OSCE. How are we working to try to make those interventions more effective? The EU has real leverage that it can bring to bear in terms of its budgets, its trade access and of course visas.

The work of the OSCE is more relevant in the Balkans where there is enlargement fatigue regarding the EU. If we think that we are not going to be able to get enlargement in the next decade or so, we need to continue to support the OSCE. More than that, we can see within the region that many troubles are likely to flare up in future. We have seen in the recent Duma elections in Russia the need for proper election monitoring. We saw the role that the OSCE played in monitoring the farcical elections in Belarus. If anything, these problems will mount in future; they will not go away. It will therefore be important, from the perspective of noble Lords on this side of the House, to feel that the Government are taking this seriously and have a strategy for making the OSCE as effective as possible.

EU: Repatriation of Powers

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

Does the noble Lord agree with the article in the Financial Times this morning by the Conservative Member of Parliament, Jo Johnson, in which he says that the last thing the City of London needs to protect its interests is for the British Eurosceptics to plaster a union jack all over it? Does he agree that the best way to defend our vital national interests in Europe is to be in, engaging our partners, rather than out, shouting on the sidelines and demanding repatriation of powers?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I entirely agree with the article, which I thought was excellent, and I am very happy that the chair of the relevant European Parliament committee on this is a British Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament, Sharon Bowles.